


You Always Remember Your First Time

by non_canonical



Category: Being Human, Being Human (UK)
Genre: 1950s, Alcohol, Angst, Blood Drinking, Explicit Language, Gambling, Gangsters, Gen, Murder, Orsha, Pre-Canon, antique furniture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 05:23:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/non_canonical/pseuds/non_canonical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Hal, there are always more questions than answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Always Remember Your First Time

**Author's Note:**

> _Being Human_ belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.

"Of course I remember my first time," Fergus leers, and already Cutler is starting to wish he hadn't asked.  He's not sure why he brought the subject up.  He must be drunker than he realised.

Fergus is unbearably smug, sitting there with the spoils of victory still piled in front of him.  Crumpled bank notes, and a pile of loose change.  A pair of diamond cufflinks.  An IOU from Louis – apparently, he does know how to write, and it's a measure of what great friends they've become that he only threatened to punch Cutler's fucking teeth down his throat for that, instead of actually doing it.

"She was a pretty little thing," Fergus tells them.  "Dark hair, pale skin, and an enormous pair of –"

"Wait a minute," Hal says.  "If you're going to swap stories, then you should all take turns."  He turns to Cutler.  "Including you."

"But they already know about mine," Cutler stammers.  "Well, sort of."  They know enough."

"If you want to hear about their first kills," – Which Cutler doesn't, but he still hasn't worked out how to say no to Hal – "then you have to tell them about yours.  Quid pro quo."

Cutler's Latin isn't what it should be, but he knows that one.  Even if he didn't, he could probably take a wild guess.  It could be Hal's motto: everything comes at a price.

"We do this in order," Hal says.

Which means that Cutler's safe for a while.  Hal is bound to go clockwise round the table, as though they were still dealing cards, and Cutler's sitting on Hal's right.  His right-hand man.  It's not that Cutler planned it that way, of course.  It just happens like that.  A lot.

"Youngest first," Hal tells him.  Which isn't fair, but Cutler knows better than to expect fairness.  Rules, yes – Hal's games always have rules – but that isn't the same thing at all.

The others are staring at him, and Fergus is grinning in a way that says he knows more than he's telling.  It's infuriating, especially when Fergus actually does know something that Cutler would rather not have aired in public.  Like the fact that Fergus was there for Cutler's first kill.  His first actual kill, as well as the botched attempts.  Cutler's a little surprised that Hal hasn't let that one slip already, but he supposes it wouldn't reflect too well on the other man, having to send his new recruit out with a nanny.

Hal is staring at him, too.  "So enlighten us," he says.

"She was –"  A whore, but that's hardly relevant so he'll keep it to himself – "just a woman I bumped into."  Not ugly, but the signs of wear were starting to show.  "She took us back to her flat."

"After we'd negotiated the price," Fergus chimes in.  He probably can't lower Cutler any further in his maker's eyes, but the prick never stops trying.

"No interruptions," Hal snaps, but it's not for Cutler's benefit.  He's in one of his quiet moods tonight: watching, detached and superior, and probably laughing up his sleeve at all of them.  Cutler swallows caustic saliva, and goes on.

"Fergus was there, too."  The woman charged extra for that: she thought he wanted to watch.  And he did, just not like that.  It wouldn't have been much of a show, anyway, not after the first few minutes when she stripped, and guided his hands to her breasts.  It had been a long time since he'd touched a woman like that, and Cutler's only flesh and blood.  But she displayed herself on the bed so clinically, and the single lightbulb buzzed and flickered until the dingy walls seemed to be closing in.  And all the time Cutler could feel the pressure of Fergus's eyes on him, the shame and the hunger mounting, then bursting, and he launched himself at her.

"She was on the bed, and I was on top of her."  Pinning her down, hand over her mouth, muffled squeals escaping through his fingers.  "She kept struggling" – Bucking, squirming underneath him, like some horrible parody of sex – "but that just made her blood pump faster."  Filling his mouth, spilling over his chin: the glorious rush of being able to drink his fill.  "It was all over quickly."  She couldn't have suffered for long.  So quiet, so still, but there was nothing peaceful about it.  Her eyes stayed fixed on him, and he eased them shut when Fergus went to fetch the tarpaulin.

"That's it."  It's done, and Cutler grabs the whisky bottle.  He's spent the evening trying to top up his glass with the barest amount, to only look like he was drinking as much as the others.  Now he fills it right up and winces the stuff down.  He wants to be numb.

Fergus snatches the bottle out of Cutler's hand.  "Go on then," he prompts Louis, and Cutler watches the man's forehead crinkle.  It must be a challenge for the poor thing: public speaking; having to use his brain instead of his fists.  Cutler can see why Fergus recruited the idiot: he can't have many opportunities to feel intellectually superior.

"It was in the fuckin' police morgue," Louis says.  He's on sparkling form tonight.  "After the ruckus in Hackney."

"You do realise why you ended up in there, don't you?" Cutler asks.  Fergus had been stuck with three gangsters, freshly turned, and only so much space in the boot of the car.  They'd be dead weight until they woke, and Fergus must have taken one look at Louis and decided not to risk putting his back out.

"Cutler," Hal warns, and it's amazing, the way he can take a man's name and make it sound like a threat.  "I said no interruptions."

Cutler closes his mouth.  He's wasting his breath anyway: the big lump doesn't realise that Fergus left him behind.  Probably wouldn't care if he knew.  It's a shame: Cutler would have liked to see that particular fight.  He suspects that Hal would have put his money on Louis, if only to wind Fergus up.

"So I wake up on the slab, and some geezer's standin' over me with a fuckin' great knife.  I wasn't just goin' to lie there and let him cut me open, was I?"  Cutler shudders sympathetically for that unknown morgue attendant whose last sight on earth was Louis, bollock naked and very, very hungry.  "Oh, and I killed the desk sergeant on the way out.  Does that count?"

"You made a right mess," Fergus grumbles, but he smirks at Louis all the same.  Then he looks at Cutler and his humour sours.  "We had a proper lawyer back then.  He took care of things for us."

"You've got a proper lawyer now," Cutler says, because it's true, and because nobody else is leaping to his defence.  Certainly not Hal.  "A bit stupid, don't you think, attracting that sort of attention? We don't own every policeman in this city."

Louis shrugs.  "It was a turf war."

A nasty one, too, by all accounts.  The gangsters were smart, smart enough to realise what they were fighting.  Surprisingly traditional, too, in some ways.  They loved their mothers, had no time for bloody poofs, and they preferred to stay human.  Some of them, at least.  But not Louis.

Cutler looks at the man, and he tries to imagine how that conversation would have gone.  No speeches, not from Fergus, just a simple, "Do you want to be a vampire, or am I going to have to cut your throat?"  Cutler's mind leaps further, back to the cold whiteness of a police cell, and he tries to imagine Hal offering him that choice – tries to imagine how it would have felt, what he might have chosen – but he just can't picture it.  Hal has never been interested in his opinion.

Cutler picks up the bottle again and fills his glass back up to the top.  A little of the oily liquid spills, and he half expects to see the varnish hiss and bubble.  But the table is made of sterner stuff: Huon pine, all the way from Tasmania, apparently, and Dennis won't be happy if the bloody thing is damaged.  Cutler fumbles out his handkerchief and mops up the spill.

But Dennis hasn't noticed: it's his turn to speak, and that clears up the little mystery of whether or not he's older than Fergus.  Dennis is waiting to make sure his audience is with him, stroking a hand over his beard and tugging at the yellowish strands around his mouth.  The hideous thing puts the ladies off, and Cutler suspects he only keeps it to encourage the rumours.  The ones that say he used to be a bush ranger – another Ned Kelly – that he had to flee Australia because the police were hot on his trail.  Cutler happens to know that those rumours are wrong.

"London, 1851.  It seemed like half of the British Empire was there for the Great Exhibition."  Dennis among them: a furniture manufacturer, he'd brought that table to exhibit.  A few other pieces, as well, but they were destroyed in the Blitz.  Hal can be remarkably indiscreet with other people's secrets.

"There were a lot of people a long way from home.  Easy pickings."  Just like Dennis himself, as it turned out, but Cutler's too tactful to mention it.  And Dennis has a vicious right hook.  "I followed a woman up to her hotel room, and I forced my way in before she could close the door.  I drained her right there, against the wall, and suddenly life didn't seem so bad.  Ten weeks on a stinking boat, and dead within a day of setting foot on English soil.  But at that moment I wouldn't have changed a thing."

And that's what it comes down to.  That's the reason Dennis is still here, and Cutler too.  It's not just cowardice that stops him breaking a leg off one of the chairs and hurling himself onto the point.

"What I didn't realise," Dennis goes on, "was the woman's maid was hiding in the bathroom.  But she sneezed just as I was about to walk out of the door.  Well, I couldn't let her live.  And there was no sense in letting her go to waste, now, was there, gentlemen?"

"That's just greedy," Fergus says, but there's something like approval in his voice.

"And there I was thinking it was all the biscuits," Cutler smirks, and he reaches out to pat the expanse of Dennis's waistline.

The whisky is doing the rounds again.  Cutler tries to pass the bottle straight on to Hal, but Louis snatches it back, and fills his glass.  Cutler lifts it to his mouth, but the medicinal, iodine fumes are enough to turn his stomach.  He thumps the glass down on the table.  Whisky sloshes out, but this time he can't clean up the mess – doesn't even dare to move, to breathe too deeply – as the fish and chips he had for supper threaten to make a re-appearance.  If he throws up in front of Fergus and the others, he'll never live it down.

"Your turn, Fergus," Hal says, and even he sounds a little the worse for wear.

It's enough to make Cutler feel a little better, and listening to Fergus boasting might take his mind off his stomach – but Fergus is sulking.  Probably remembering how Hal cut him off the last time.  A hundred and fifty, give or take, and he acts like a surly adolescent.

"Some time tonight."  Hal is staring pointedly at his watch, but Cutler has no idea if he actually has somewhere to be.  He suspects not, but he's never been good at calling Hal's bluff.

"There were no easy pickings in my day."  Fergus shoots a venomous look at Dennis, but he'll have to do better than that if he wants to get through Dennis's thick hide.  "Especially in a small town where everyone knew everyone else."  A small town: that explains a lot.  Fergus is small town – small fry, strictly provincial – always has been always will be.  "Back then, you weren't allowed to be alone with a woman.  You had to talk them into it, give them a bit of the old charm."

"The Casanova of the north," Cutler says, and Hal frowns.  "Oops, sorry.  Didn't mean to say that out loud."  This time, Fergus has to be pacified with another drink.  

"There was this one girl, couldn't have been more than fifteen.  I gave her a flash of the smile" – Fergus demonstrates, and Cutler can't help thinking he looks more sinister than appealing, but maybe that's because he's witnessed Fergus's handiwork – "and I whispered a few sweet nothings in her ear.  Got her to meet me in the garden when it was dark.  She had the biggest pair of tits, and she was practically begging for it."  Apparently, laughing counts as an interruption, but Cutler can't seem to stop, not even when Hal scowls at him – and this time he looks like he means it.  "These days," Fergus ploughs on, "I'd take the time to oblige a lady.  But back then I had other things on my mind."

"So who was this paragon of beauty?" Dennis asks.

"I heard it was the scullery maid," Hal smirks.

"So what if she was?" Fergus snarls.  "I bet you didn't do any better on your first time."

Silence settles over the table like the pall of cigarette smoke.  Fergus is drunk, or he wouldn't have spoken to Hal like that.  Cutler's drunk, too, but not so drunk that he misses the way Hal's lips press together in an angry line, and he tries to discreetly back his chair out of harm's way.  Then Hal reaches for the whisky bottle, and Cutler eases back from the edge of his seat.

"All right," Hal says.  He's not one to back down from a challenge, but Cutler can't believe he's going to do this, that he's actually going to tell them.  Hal works with them, eats with them – spends drunken evenings playing cards with them – but they never make the mistake of thinking that he's one of them.  But here it is: his first kill, the opening chapter of the legend of Hal Yorke.

"I was recruited on the battlefield of Orsha."  Cutler's never heard of it.  He'll have to ask Dennis about it later – on second thoughts, he'll pay a visit to the library instead.  He wouldn't want the others to think he has some sort of unhealthy fascination with Hal.  "The surgeon who recruited me took me to the hospital tents.  He let me feed from one of his patients.  A man with a festering stump where his right leg used to be."

"But –"  Cutler bites back his questions, afraid that Hal is going to abandon his story, but he needn't have worried.  The older man hasn't even noticed that he spoke.

But it can't be true: that's what Cutler wants to say.  Hal Yorke doesn't prey on the sick, on cripples.  That's something even Cutler would think twice about – although, if he's being honest, he wouldn't let it stop him.  This is a joke.  Hal's joking, and he knows that none of them can catch him out.  It's one of the advantages of being his age: history is written by the survivors.

Hal picks up his glass and stares into the golden liquid.  "My maker told me that vampires are like leeches.  That the human race must be bled to keep it healthy, the way a surgeon bleeds a patient."  Hal tips his head back and pours the whisky down his throat.  "He didn't believe a word of it.  He was worried that I didn't have the stomach for killing."

Hal is joking: Cutler knew it all along, and he smiles – maybe giggles a little, although he'll deny it strenuously – at the very idea of the Old One showing mercy.  Louis is grinning, too: even he can appreciate the absurdity of Hal being squeamish.  Cutler waits for the punchline, the laughter, that's bound to follow.  Hal always lets them in on his jokes, one way or another.  But Hal looks pale, unwell – if that's even possible – and when he looks at Cutler he winces.  It's not pain, but maybe an echo of it.

"I need some fresh air," Hal announces, and he lurches to his feet.

"Does somebody want to tell me what just happened?" Cutler asks, once Hal is safely out of the room.  He hates to admit it, but they've known Hal a lot longer than he has.  A century longer, in Fergus's case, but Fergus is glaring at him as though it's somehow all his fault, and Dennis won't look him in the eye.

"Let's hope you never find out," Fergus says, and for once Cutler gets the feeling that the other man isn't simply trying to scare him.

Fergus gathers up the banknotes, and the scrap of paper with Louis' childish scrawl.  He scoops the coins into his hand, and lets them jingle into his pocket.  But he leaves Hal's diamond cufflinks on the table when he walks away.  


  


End file.
